flying on the burnt edges of a dream
by BlueandDepressedHuman
Summary: It's been two months, one week and five days since Jason killed himself, and Peter can't stop seeing his ghost everywhere he goes. But maybe everything isn't as cut and dry as it appears. And maybe it doesn't start with Peter at all. *So I'm not sure about the end of this chapter, it feels like it needs more. So if anyone has any ideas, please tell me cause I'm lost.
1. waking up to ash and dust

_"Jason, you're flying."_

_Peter's hands are on his face, but everything is blurred and dull now. Jason stumbles and falls back, and, for a moment, he regrets._

_But then it goes dark._

_And nothing matters._

* * *

His eyes open and harsh light drills into his skull. Jason winches and brings his hands up to his face to block the offending light, but a sharp tug forces his right hand back. He squints his eyes opened to stare at the hand, and he sees tape near his wrist. There is a tube coming out from under the tape, and that's when it hits Jason.

IV.

It's an IV line.

He's in a hospital.

But why?

Jason has a moment of confusion.

_Then he remembers._

* * *

_It's all so hard. Everything. His parents. The expectations. Notre Dame. The secrets. Ivy. The lies. _Peter.

_And all Jason does is mess it up._

_It would be better for everyone if he wasn't there to interfere with their lives._

_(And easier for Jason himself to not have to feel guilty and wrong all the time. )_

* * *

Jason doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. He's alive. _Somehow_ he'd survived.

_Why was he alive? _

By all accounts, Jason should be dead. He'd _wanted_ to die. He'd taken what had been a lethal amount of GHB, and he remembers fading.

But he's not dead.

And he doesn't know what to do with that.

He remembers the minutes Before. The moment he'd decided to end it. Saying goodbye to Peter (in his own way). How he began to get confused, then dizzy and lightheaded. The look on Peter's face, the confusion that made way for horror when he finally understood what Jason had done.

Jason also remembers the regret.

When he'd been as good as dead, he took a microsecond to think about his family, Peter, Nadia, Ivy, Matt, Lucas, even Sister Chantelle, who'd always been so kind to him. And he'd realized that he didn't want to leave them.

And maybe that's the tragedy of it all, of the entire sordid affair of trying to be good enough, to be the what everyone wanted, what everybody needed, but never quite getting it right. Always coming up short, falling behind and failing so spectacularly that even the people he thought would always be there, couldn't stand him. Because even with all of that failure, Jason _still_ had that moment of regret, and he knows it wasn't guilt. He'd wanted to stay for _himself_, and that's the most selfish thing Jason's ever wanted.


	2. This is it, the apocalypse

It's been two months, one week and five days since Jason killed himself. It's been two months, one week and five days since Peter's world imploded on itself, and Peter doesn't remember a second it. Everything since Jason is just a whirlwind of nothing and everything, with it all speeding up till it blurred behind his eyes and then slowing down to a snail's pace, and Peter is just so exhausted.

There had been moments, before the funeral and during the investigation into Jason's suicide (because Jason's parents just couldn't believe that their "perfect little prince" had killed himself), where Peter had nearly decided it wasn't worth it, that nothing was worth anything, not after everything that God, or fuck-all-knows-who, had put him through. Not when someone as bright and brilliant as Jason could be taken away like that. But then Peter would remember Jason as he was, both before, when they'd just been starting out, and after, when it all got so damned messy, and Peter'd get so inexplicably angry, at Jason, at himself, at God. Because whose fault was it that Jason was gone? Was it God's for making Peter and Jason the way they were, gay and unable to do anything but survive in a world that wouldn't, couldn't, accept them? Was it Peter's for pushing Jason, for not being able to suck it up and accept things the way they were? Or was it Jason's fault? Jason's, for being a spineless coward who'd rather run away from the world than face his problems?

So Peter got angry, and he blamed the world, and he decided he didn't want to be like Jason- didn't want to be a coward.

* * *

Peter starts his first day at Berkeley with a backpack and the weight of the world on his shoulders. Other than that Peter has nothing, no friends, little money, and no hope for the future. He honestly wasn't even sure that he'd go to college at all, not after everything, but his mom had pushed and said that it'd be good for him, to put St. Cecils behind him and start a new chapter in his life. So he's at college, in a room not so unlike the one at St. Cecils, and he just hopes that his roommate isn't named Jason. He's had enough of Jasons to last a lifetime.

* * *

Collapsing onto one of the small dorm beds, Peter ruffles through his backpack and pulls a picture from his bag and cradles it in his hands.

As much as Peter knows he hates Jason, he also knows how much he loves him. Even after everything. And Peter couldn't come to this scary, new place all alone; Jason had been his Superman for so long, even before they became them, and Peter didn't know if he could handle this place without that security blanket.

Gently, Peter runs his fingers over Jason's smiling face. He takes in the scene of the two of them: They were fifteen, and it was Fall. The leaves had fallen causing Peter's mother to ask the boys to rake them. And they had, making a nice neat pile in the middle of the yard ready to be thrown in a bag for the trash. Until Jason had pushed Peter into it. The leaves had erupted like a volcano, and Jason's laughter had rung out through the yard. Until Peter had pulled Jason in after him. By that point, Peter's mother had come out to see what was taking the two so long, and had run back inside to grab her camera to capture the scene. When she did finally get her camera, Jason and Peter were in the middle of a ring of leaves, smiling like fools at each other, them both with leaves sticking out of their hair like a half-assed birds nest.

Peter suddenly wants to cry. How is he supposed to get through the rest of his life without Jason? How is he supposed to go on with his life knowing what they had, what they could have had? Peter doesn't know what to do. For so long it had been him and Jason against the rest of the world, fighting off their demons together. And now Peter is all alone with hundreds of new demons baring down on him, and no one to share the burden with.

Peter puts the picture on the nightstand beside his tiny twin bed and lays down, closing his eyes tight.

He is so exhausted.


End file.
